来源：《卫报》
原文刊登日期：2021年11月22日
In order to reduce the cost of its new social care funding scheme for England by an estimated £900m, the government has opted to reduce the entitlement of less well-off people. Under the proposals put forward a decade ago by the economist Sir Andrew Dilnot, which ministers announced in September that they had decided to take forward, a cap on contributions will be applied. Set at £86,000, this becomes the maximum that an individual pays towards personal care, including that delivered in their own home.
为了将英国新的社会护理基金计划的成本降低约9亿英镑，政府已选择减少不太富裕人群的福利。根据10年前经济学家安德鲁•迪尔洛特爵士提出的建议，政府将对社会护理缴款设定上限。英国政府今年9月宣布，他们已决定推进该建议。这个上限是8.6万英镑，这是个人支付的个人护理费用的上限，包括上门护理费用。
The point is to protect the minority of people who need long-term social care, due to dementia or other illness, from the financial catastrophe of losing all their assets. Currently, there is no cap on the total cost of care home fees. People who have saved all their lives in the expectation of leaving an inheritance to their children can be forced to sell their homes in order to pay to be looked after. The new social care system, which will be funded by a health and care levy added to national insurance contributions, will create what Sir Andrew calls a “national risk pool for social care” for the first time.
新计划的重点是要保护那些因痴呆或其他疾病而需要长期社会护理的少数人，使他们免受失去所有资产的金融灾难。目前，护理中心的总费用没有上限。那些为了给子女留下遗产而节俭了一生的人，可能会被迫卖掉自己的房子，以支付护理费用。新的社会护理体系将由国民保险缴费中增加的医疗和护理税提供资金，这将首次创建安德鲁爵士所说的“社会护理国家风险池”。
But the change in the rules is more than a technicality, and its effect is to make the scheme markedly less progressive. While the Dilnot cap would have applied to the amount spent on a person’s care, including contributions paid by councils on a means-tested basis, the government’s cap applies only to the amount paid out of private funds. The entitlement to means-tested support is effectively exchanged for support to cover costs over £86,000. Jeremy Hunt, the chair of the health select committee, called this “a really big disappointment” – but said that Tory MPs should vote for it anyway.
但规则的变化不仅仅是技术性的，其效果是使该计划明显缺乏进步性。虽然迪尔诺上限适用于个人护理支出，包括地方政府在经济状况调查基础上支付的缴款，但中央政府的上限仅适用于私人支付的金额。经济状况调查支持的福利实际上被用来支付超过86000英镑的部分。卫生特别委员会主席杰里米·亨特称这是“一个非常大的失望”——但他说保守党议员无论如何都应该投赞成票。
It is true that the revised plan remains preferable to no plan at all. But given the extent to which assets are concentrated in housing, and the huge variations in property values, geography is crucial. While a person in a £1m house will see 90% of their housing asset protected under the new scheme, owners of homes worth £100,000 stand to lose most of it. Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth has branded this differential impact “daylight robbery”. The former cabinet minister Damian Green thinks that a fairer way to achieve savings would be to protect a “flat percentage of assets”, rather than creating a floor below which fees cannot be charged.
的确，修订后的计划比没有计划要好。但考虑到资产集中于住房的程度，以及房地产价值的巨大差异，地理位置至关重要。在新计划下，拥有100万英镑房产的人90%的房产资产将受到保护，而拥有价值10万英镑房产的人则会失去大部分房产。工党的乔纳森•阿什沃斯将这种差异影响称为“光天化日之下的抢劫”。前内阁部长达米安•格林认为，实现节约的更公平的方式是保护“固定的资产比例”，而不是创造一个不能收取费用的下限。
The critics are right. The government is wrong. If any of these poorer pensioners is forced to sell their home under the new arrangements, the Conservatives will break a manifesto promise. Boris Johnson talks of levelling up the north and shrinking the wealth gap between the English regions. But by its actions over the past week, his government has shown, once again, that its friends in the south come first.
批评者是对的。政府错了。如果这些较贫穷的退休人员中有人被迫在新的安排下出售他们的房子，保守党将违背宣言中的承诺。鲍里斯•约翰逊谈到要提升北部地区，并缩小英格兰地区之间的贫富差距。但通过过去一周的行动，他的政府再一次表明，南部的朋友是第一位的。